Monday, February 7, 2011

These guys weren't stoners, too pacified to get off the couch and get a job.
Their empty cupboards were not situated in four thousand square foot homes with central air and thermostats, and Martha Stewart line furnishings.  Things change so much so fast.
If I were to post images of the inside of my house, of my car, or if I shared the number of dollars it takes for me to live comfortably for a month, I think different people would feel different things. I know that people like my stepmother would be disappointed, and would tell me to get a life.




Is this what I am suppose to be going for? I look around at the world around me at the people I'm suppose to look up to, and I see them scrambling to hold on to their four bedroom homes/ designer/ convenient lives in the face of more debt than they will ever pay off in their lifetime.
Everywhere I turn, I see ads for how it is important that a person knows and works on his credit score. WHY?
Because you always need more, and someone can sure as shit front you the resources to fan the flame of your shiny life. Resources no longer represent sustenance. Resources represent a contract.
Sign on the dotted line and feel the "warm, glowing glow" of owning more shit and paying for it, the rest of your life! Now there's something to wake up in the morning for!


It may be incredibly ignorant of me, but here's what I see.
The rich stay rich. The poor and the rich whom are in debt are going to stay in their place. unless something miraculous happens and poor in debt guy gets a really really good job, or wins the lottery, or inherits a chunk of change from an ancestor whom had a life.
Make sure everyone is in debt up to their eyeballs, and you will always have a set of valuable hands in the workplace. The rich employ the indebted, so that the indebted can sustain their spending habit, can avoid that bad credit score.
You want to get a good job in America? Get a loan.
You want to buy a home in America? You really need to work a steady (yet shitty job that has nothing to do with the degree you're paying off) to pay off that loan fast, so your credit score is high and you don't have  more debt than you can afford, since you don't have that really good job yet.
You find that you have health issues in America? Well, heck- you're in America! Take that extra loan payment down and pay two hundred dollars for a health paln starting now, and continue paying more and more until forever!
You're an American! You should have a shiny car, expensive hobbies, tons of friends, and a hoard of children! You still don't have that four bed room home with a garden staff and home owner's insurance? Your children don't have cars? You don't go on exciting, expensive vacations?
You need to get a life. You need to try harder.
You don't have enough.

We are in the midst of a governmental financial shitter dive. Our acquiring of wealth on a National scope has gone to a whole new level, where not only can't the Fed back up it's indebted citizens- it's banks, but it can't back up it's states, it's army, it's peace keeping, it's research. Yet cars still sell like gangbusters for "starting under $19,000!"
WOW.
EEEEW.
Whats so wrong with that?

It chaps my ass is what.

I'm going to get a job because at this juncture in my life, I need something to do which earns money enough to sustain my livelihood. I also need the job because I need to do SOMETHING- I need to interact with people, and without a job I just don't jump at the opportunity to do that.
I would like a few more dollars to feel secure about, but I have to keep my thoughts below grandeur. What I think I need to be going for is to be in my place, to for right now, concentrate on the space around myself in the middle-lower class. Adelaide's is a small business, the owner is sustained separately from the business, so the business is there for people like me who need a little something to do for money, a little something to do with their time. This job will probably never make me more than an extra couple grand per year. Not enough for the American Suburb face lift. Not even enough to buy a car on financing, not enough to buy and sustain a health plan, not enough to buy all new furniture- my needs do not allow for it.
My needs are simple but there are plenty of them. My life is boring but it's plenty expensive.
I am not the exciting fire dancer.
I am not the socialite, the group mother, the doctor, or a master of a craft.
I am not the life of the party, or the leader of the pack.
When I was little, I thought I would be.
I see now that I am just someone.
I am the listener, the wanderer, the watcher of the fire dancer. I am Aliesha. The barista from noon to closing makes a good drink, is polite, maybe sometimes is a little chatty. I am the introverted, unproductive, highly evolved member of an extroverted society.
I am just here. I am just starting out.
But I'm sure it won't stay that way forever.

3 comments:

Shelly said...

I know you! The brilliant, creative, adorable girl who sings out loud and dances to the wind. Be happy in the moment, look forward...not behind. No one truly knows the heart of another, it may seem they are content with worldly goods but in reality they are just going through the motions of life. Not really choosing anything, searching for happiness. Keep love around you, and know you are loved very much.

Snohomish Shepherdess said...

The listener, the wanderer, the watcher...Aliesha is someone and that someone is not unproductive. As a society, we need all different kinds of people -the dreamers, watchers, artists and poets! Money isn't everything in life, BUT having enough sure makes a lot of things easier, and it can be such a difficult struggle to get enough just starting out. I hope the barista gig helps fills the gap between 'good enough' and 'not enough' for you.

Anonymous said...

And you are important to those who love you for who you are and not who society thinks you should be. Patty.